~ capturing my families' memories

DeFries Velvet Photo Album

Several years ago, I visited my great Aunt Bertha and she brought out a velvet covered photo album and we looked through it. Unfortunately, she did not know who any of the people were only that they were her family. It appears to be a DeFries/Brown album, which is my great Aunt Bertha’s paternal grandmother & grandfather. At the time I didn’t have a scanner or a laptop so I was unable to obtain copies.

Aunt Bertha died in 2008 and no one seemed to know what happened to that velvet album until this week. I got an email from my 1st cousin once removed’s wife, Linda, that indicated they found ‘that album’ and inviting me over to see it. I was so excited even though I knew that few if any of the photos were identified. I’ve written about this album before hoping to one day be able to borrow it and that day arrived today!

Bill & Linda have let me borrow the album and I’ve begun the process of scanning the photos. Included in this post are a few images showing the album’s exterior and interior. It has definitely seen some years. All of the pages are still sewn together an in tact however, the glue holding the front and backs of the pages has long worn off and many of the photos are no longer able to stay in their place. This album has several different types of photos, such as: tin type, carte-de-visite and cabinet cards.

I’m going to make a spreadsheet of the photos including the photographer, location and a description. I’ll make educated guesses of who is in the photos and an approximate date then I’ll post them in hopes that other DeFries family members may help identify them.

Click to enlarge

Tucked inside the album was a card with a name on it that may represent the owner of the album. I can tell the last name is DeFries but I am not sure of the initials. It may be A. J, which could stand for Anje Jans, my great aunt Bertha’s great grandmother. What do you think it says?

The letters are difficult to decipher. It’s hard to know who was the original owner of this photo album. It appears that are several of Isaac and Mary’s children and possibly of Isaac as a younger man. There seem to be mostly those of the DeFries family but not many are identified.

Welcome!

Delving into family stories, documents and photos is what I enjoy! Relative Storyboard: capturing family memories, is my blog where I share and encourage discussion about my findings. Often I only have tidbits of information that I piece together in hopes that one day I'll have a more complete storyboard.
I hope you find something of interest and I need your comments, if you do. So, if you have questions or if we share an ancestor I really want to hear from you. Leave me a comment or contact me at kayzie31 at gmail.com.